Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Eavis dismisses Smart's stories as "malicious"

Gordon Smart has run two days running with pieces claiming Jay-Z is going to pull out of Glastonbury; today, Glastonbury has responded. Michael Eavis isn't happy:

Speaking to XFM, Eavis appeared to suggest that The Sun had got the story from the organisers of the Wireless Festival in London, where Jay-Z will headline the week after Glastonbury.

"The Sun was carrying a story that he was pulling out,” Eavis said.
“I'm not sure where they got from, probably from the people that were doing a show in London the following week [Wireless festival] because they were tying to sell tickets for their show.”

Of course, this whole story is helping take the focus off the broader question of how Glastonbury has managed to turn itself from a sell-out event to one desperately offering second chances to register. It's funny how everyone is blaming Jay-Z and nobody is pointing the finger at the Kings Of Bloody Leon, isn't it?


5 comments:

Olive said...

Simon- what do you think the problem with ticket sales at Glastonbury is this year? It's obviously not the weather, and a lacklustre bill hasn't really been a problem in previous years. I'd love it to be because of last year's attempt at a non-transferable ticketing system, but somehow I don't think it is.

Olive said...

(after reading comments on previous posts)
I think that carsmilesteve is probably right- it's only comparatively recently that anyone has noticed, or indeed cared, is a festival sold out.

Anonymous said...

"It's obviously not the weather"

Wrong.

Simon Hayes Budgen said...

It's not the weather as such - the problem with the festival is that if it pours with rain on 60,000 people, you can still just about get around the site and have fun. If it rains, and you've got double that number trying to trudge through mud, it starts to be a lot less fun, very quickly indeed.

The ticketing, too, doesn't help much - if Glastonbury was one of two or three festivals, it might be able to get away with making going to the gig like a trial from the Adventure Game. But the 'younger audience' Eavis craves isn't that bothered.

Jack said...

I've been the past three festivals (2004, 2005 and 2006), and I'm just not bothered this year. I think it's much to do with the mud in the past two years.

I can cope with it pissing down with rain for five days when I'm watching bands and there are things to explore. However it's the mud! Even standing still is exhausting because you need to stop your feet sinking into the mud. In 2004 I saw sunrise twice, and stayed up pretty late most nights exploring the fun. But last year I went straight to my tent after the main bands finished because I was so shattered.

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